


No Vacaney

by Somewhatokstories



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Drama, Horror, Other, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2019-11-23 14:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somewhatokstories/pseuds/Somewhatokstories
Summary: This is a story of survival as both David and Max find themselves fighting for their lives as they try to fend off a group of masked killers in the middle of nowhere.This story is mainly inspired by horror movies from the late 2000s like (Wrong turn 2003) and the film (Vacancy 2007)





	1. The end of summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the end of the summer at Camp Campbell, and everyone is getting ready to pack up and leave while Max tries his best to avoid everyone especially David

It was finally the end of summer, finally after three long excruciating months of staying at Camp Campbell a place where had been dropped off for over three years now. Each year was more awful than the last.

Now camp was officially over, and Max didn’t know if he should be relieved by this fact or disappointed because he would soon have to go back home.

Sure the kid hated staying in Camp Campbell, he hated it with all of his heart and he was more than happy to leave both the cheap crappy camp and the idiot counselors, one thing that Max would really miss would be his friends.

Max would never admit but he would really miss Nikki and Neil, they were probably his closest friends. Just being around them made staying at camp a little more bearable, and honestly Max didn’t want to say goodbye just yet.

But regardless of what he wanted that was it, his only friends were leaving and he would have to go back to having no one.

So for that day Max didn’t talk to anyone, he ignored any attempts from the other campers to participate in any farewell activities, the young boy also ignored all attempts from Neil and Nikki whenever they tried to start a conversation Max would just walk away or just down right ignored them altogether.

After a while they both gave up and stopped trying and honestly that was all that Max needed, he didn’t want any tear-filled goodbyes or some sappy group hug like in the god awful movies, he didn’t want to look at them in the face as he said his goodbyes.

He didn’t want to say goodbye.

As the day went by none other than David appeared constantly pestering and annoying the boy as he tried his very best to ignore the red headed man, and things only got worse as David noticed that Max wasn’t talking to any of his friends.

David tried to talk with the boy many times throughout the day, but each attempt that David would make was met with a constant onslaught of vulgar language and insults, but the camp counselor just persisted.

“Max,” David spoke.

“You know that if there's anything bothering you, you can talk to me.” he stated in a calm and understanding tone as he stood there in silence waiting for the boy to answer him.

Max just stood there in silence as he tried his best to ignore the man, Max was never able to understand why the annoying camp counselor would constantly try to understand what was happening whenever he was upset or angry.

Why couldn’t he be more like Gwen, he didn’t need to be concerned with the campers all he needed to do was to make sure that they didn’t end up dead. Gwen understood this so why not David why the hell did he care?

Max stood there in silence the whole world around him went silent as David waited for a response just hoping that he would be able to understand why the ten year old was so upset.

But that response never came, all that David was given was a loud scoff by the jaded child.

“As if I really want to waste my time talking to you.” Max responded to the annoying red head in a rather threatening tone of voice as he violently kicked a small amount of dirt and stones in the direction of David’s face.

Of course the dirt barely even managed to hit the counselors face Max had at least managed to get some of David’s clothes.

David instantly jumped backed by a few feet in an attempt to avoid the sudden attack by the small child.

And with that Max turned to the opposite direction and he began to make his way towards the docks by the lake, as he walked along the dirt path he couldn’t hear David following him so Max let out a sigh of relief at the fact that he had managed to avoid another speech about the ‘importance of friends’ and ‘sharing your emotions’ god Max could almost hear it constantly replaying playing in his head over and over again.

Max had finally made it two the end of the rickety wooden dock, while Max didn’t entirely trust the stability of the dock and rightfully so especially considering how old the camp was and the fact that the greedy bastard Campbell would never put in the money to fix a goddamn thing.

‘What the fuck does David see in him?’ Max thought to himself as he sat down on the ruff wood from the dock, he quietly stared out at the lake embracing the calming sounds of the water like a warm blanket on a cold late night.

Max didn’t know why but he always found himself in a much calmer state of mind whenever he was near the lake, just that fact that it was mostly isolated from everyone else just made the area even more appealing, despite the fact that Max could easily step on a rusty nail from the dock.

After several hours had past Max decided that he should start to head to the mess hall and just wait for the rest of the day to end.

________________

The sun was now beginning to set as the day was now almost over casting a bright orange over the once light blue sky.

A light orange glow was cast in the huge empty mass hall as Max sat by one of the many tables that littered the large room, by now most of the campers had been picked up by their parents making the already vacant mess hall appear even more isolating and cold.

Now the only people who were left at the camp were David, Gwen, Nikki, Neil and Max.

This had to be the very worst outcome for Max, now that almost everyone was gone both Nikki and Neil would focus the rest of their time trying to talk to Max, they had no other distractions not Nurf and his usual bullshit or Nerris and Harrison fighting over their delusional magic bullshit.

Max let out a loud frustrated groan as he slammed his face down on the table. “Fuck me.” Max stated in a defeated tone, he didn’t know what to do now.

There were still a solid three hours before it would be time for the camp to officially shut its doors for the year until next summer, that’s all he had just three more hours to avoid Neil and Nikki.

Maybe he could hide in a random tree and just hope for the best, or maybe he could hide in David’s cabin they wouldn’t think to look in there.

But before Max could even put this plan into action he soon heard a loud scream directly in his ear. “MAX!” the loud unknown person shrieked in an excited tone in the boy’s ear.

This sudden loud noise caused Max to jump up from his seat and fall backwards to the hard wooden floor. “Fucking hell!” Max screamed in response as he tried to lift himself up off the dirty floor of the mess hall.

Max then looked up at the unknown person only to find out that it was Nikki, of course it had to be Nikki who else other than her would yell directly in someone's ear to get their attention.

“Jesus Christ Nikki, are you trying to make me deaf?” the now angry boy asked to the excited girl as he picked himself up off the floor.

Nikki let out a loud annoying laugh. “Sorry Max, I was just really excited to see you.” Nikki explained to the still mad Max who was clearly not in the mood to put up with her today.

“What, why?” the boy asked.

“Well Neil and I thought that you had already left, we looked everywhere for you.” Nikki explained in a slightly more calmer tone compared to how she had first started this irritating concentration.

“Well did you two ever think that maybe I just wanted to be left alone for a bit.” Max answered back making sure to avoid any eye contact from the girl.

Nikki didn’t respond to Max’s statement right away, all the boy could guess was that she was maybe taken aback by his want to be left alone. “Why do you want to be left alone?” Nikki asked in a concerned yet almost hurt tone of voice.

“What, now I need to fucking justify why I want to be left alone?” Max responded in a bitter tone he could feel the anger just building up inside him.

“Why can’t you just mind your own fucking business!” Max shouted out loudly at Nikki who was just shocked at how Max was currently acting, she was confused at why her very close friend was acting like this but she was mostly hurt by this.

Silence soon fell on the room as Max’s once loud angry screams to be left alone were turned into a sad frustrated sigh.

“Okay,” Nikki suddenly spoke up finally breaking the long silence that had fallen on the large room of the mess hall. “I’ll leave you alone.”

She spoke up again sounding even more hurt than before, this was then followed by the sound of her footsteps hitting off the wooden floor becoming more muffled as she walked further away from Max, the last thing that he heard was the sound of the double doors being pushed opened and loudly closing shut.

Max was once again alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the very first fan fic that I’ve ever written so I might not be that good, but I’m willing to hear whatever advice or tips you guys have to say.


	2. Late arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter mainly focuses on David and Gwen as they both try to take care of Max who’s parents still didn’t show up

“Here you go Max, sorry for the long wait.” David apologized as he gently set down the plate of freshly prepared food on the table where Max was seated yet again.

It was a plate of freshly cooked pasta with a decent amount of tomato sauce along with some kind of herbs, but Max couldn't quite tell what type of herbs they were, they were either basil or parsley.

Either way Max didn’t really care, as long as it was at least edible he was fine.

The young boy sat there just staring at the food for a few seconds as he slowly poked the pasta with his fork, he wasn’t too sure if he could really trust that David of all people could really manage to cook something that was even remotely edible.

Knowing David he had probably accidentally put rat poison in the sauce instead of using herbs or that the pasta was under-cooked, Max couldn't help but think that there had to be something wrong with the food in some way shape or form.

But after a few more seconds of silently looking at the food Max was fed up with the constant feeling of hunger and just said fuck it and took a decent bit of the pasta and quickly shoved it into his mouth.

To the surprise of the young ten year old the pasta was actually somewhat decent, in fact it wasn’t just decent it was actually quite good, it was really good.

“There wasn’t really much for me to work with, so I hope this is okay.” David suddenly spoke up breaking Max’s attention from the food.

“It’s fine David.” Max stated in a clearly irritated voice as he tried to hide his real thoughts on the food.

“That's good to hear” he said with a sigh of relief as he was just thrilled that Max didn’t completely hate his cooking. “If you need anything else don’t be afraid to ask okay.” David suggested as he gave Max a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Max obviously ignored the man and primary focused on his food, it was almost finished by this point and the young boy was nearly full.

So Max took the last remaining parts of the pasta and ate them, finally finishing his plate. “You really enjoyed that didn’t you Max?” Gwen laughed as she finally took her attention away from her book and towards the young camper.

David smiled at the fact that Max had actually enjoyed something that he had done, even if he didn’t fully admit it the man could tell.

“Yeah only because it’s decent compared to the fucking slob that we were fed for the past three months!” Max angrily protested as he pushed the plate aside causing a slight sound as the plate slid across the wooden table.

“Oh you didn't deny that you like it!” The female counselor laughed again causing Max to become more irritated and defensive as she had just found that Max had liked David's cooking.

“Shut up!” Max yelled, his face was a dark shade of red clearly from embarrassment at being called out by the female counselor. Max was getting more embarrassed by the second, he had just proved to Gwen that he really did like the food by getting mad and defensive at her claims.

The young child cursed himself for getting defensive and causing a scene, he might as well just come out and say that he enjoyed David’s cooking.

“Come on Gwen, you don’t need to tease Max.” David suddenly spoke up in a rather stern tone of voice as he placed a glass of water down on the table for Max to drink.

Gwen’s once loud fit of laughter slowly died down to nothing but a soft chuckle. “Okay, okay I’ll stop teasing him.” The still giddy counselor promised as she looked at Max who was trying his best to just ignore her for now.

“It’s okay Max, you don’t need to feel embarrassed.” David spoke to the boy.

“...yeah whatever.” Max stated as he grabbed the tall glass of water and took a rather large drink.

David lightly patted Max on the shoulder, the boy didn’t fight his or pushed him away, he just gave up and let it happen. The red headed man then proceeded to head over towards Gwen who’s attention was now back to her book yet again.

 

\------------

  
Max looks at the old clock that was hanging on the wall by a single rusty nail, the hands of the clock pointed that it was now currently 10am his parents were about seven hours late, this was the latest that they had ever been.

‘What the fuck is taking them so long?’ The young boy thought to himself as he continued to stare at the clock hoping that maybe by doing this his parents would arrive soon.

“Fucking bastards.” Max spoke under his breath as he shoved both of his hands in his hoodie pocket.

He couldn’t believe that they did this again, he never understood why they would always do this every year, all they had to do was to just show up on time and they couldn’t even do that simple task.

What the hell was he even thinking, of course they wouldn’t arrive on time, why the hell would this year be any different, why the hell did he believe them.

Max didn’t know why he was so upset about this, he was perfectly fine about them being late for the first few years so why was he getting upset by this now?.

“Max” A quiet voice called out making the young boy jumped out of his skin.

‘Fuck how long was David here?’ The surprised child thought to himself.

He turned around to see David only standing a few feet away from where he was sitting, but Max noticed something was wrong with the man, he looked like something was bothering him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Max asked angrily as he hoped that his aggressive attitude would maybe drive the annoying man away.

Obviously this plan didn’t work, it never did no matter how rude Max was or how much that he had hurt David both physically or mentally. No matter how many horrible events that Max had caused for the camp counselor he would still always treat the young boy with the same amount of respect and care.

And that was what confused Max the most.

“Max I know that this might be a bit of a ‘strange’ question but,” the man stopped talking halfway through his sentence, he continued to struggle with his words for several seconds.

“What the fuck are you trying to say?” the now annoyed Max asked as he found the mumbling to be extremely irritating.

“Right, well it’s just,” David paused for a few seconds as Max continued to glared at him in annoyance until the counselor began to speak once more. “The phone number that you’re parents wrote down, it doesn’t go through to anyone.” he explained.

For a few seconds Max wasn’t hearing anything around him, he couldn’t hear the counselor speaking or the ticking of the clock, it was almost like his whole world was completely stripped of sound.

Max was almost at a loss of words, for a few seconds he heard nothing but the loud repetitive thumps of his heart like a beat to a drum.

“W-what do you mean it won’t go through?” Max yelled at David clearly showing the man that he was shocked by this knowledge. But Max wasn’t just shocked, he was scared.

“No Max it’s okay, I’m sure that there’s a-”

“HOW THE FUCK IS THIS OKAY?!” Max screamed out in anger and fear which caused David to jump back out of pure shock from this sudden reaction.

He had never ever seen Max this upset before. No that's not entirely true, David had seen the boy being very upset several times throughout the three years that he had attended Camp Campbell. This was the first time that David had ever actually seen Max fully scared.

It was clear as day that the young child was extremely scared right now, Max was noticeably shaking and his breathing had become labored as he struggled to breath.

David noticed this and quickly rushed over to Max's side, he then made several attempt to calm the boy down. "It's okay buddy just try to breath okay." David enplaned to the boy as he tried to calm his breathing, but this didn't help as much as David wanted it to.

And as David silently sat there by Max's side just trying his best to help him in anyway that he could, the man had noticed that in the corner of his eyes he could clearly see that Max was beginning to tear up.

the man instantly tried to stop this by reassuring that everything would be okay and that it was probably just one huge misunderstanding, maybe his parents had just got a new phone number or maybe their phone line was broken in someway.

“Max, kiddo I know that this might be a bit upsetting, but we both need to stay calm.” He said in a calm and understanding tone as he knew that Max most likely wasn't even paying any attention to his words, but he was going to try regardless.

“Look I’ll try to see if I can contact them through email, and if that doesn’t work, then I’ll think of something.” David stated to Max who still wasn’t even listening to a single word that the man said.

Max couldn’t believe what was happening to him, his parents had abandoned, him they had really abandoned him there.

“Max.” David began to speak again.

“Leave me alone.” Max demanded in a cold yet ashamed tone as he tried his absolute best to hide his face from David who was just standing there no knowing how to react to his scene right in front of him.

David tried to get the child to look at him, but this only caused the frightened child to pull his hoodie over his head in another attempt to ignore the man.

“Just leave me alone.” Max asked again but this time his voice was in a much more weaker tone like he was struggling to hold back the tears that were building up inside of him.

“Okay, I’ll promise Max I’ll do everything I can to make this right.” The man promised as he patted Max gently on the back. Max shifted his body into the opposite direction from the man, the last thing that he needed was pity from someone who he couldn't stand.

David got the message that the boy just wanted to be alone for now, though David really didn’t want to leave Max alone, especially in the current state that he was in.

But the least the counselor could do was to give Max some time to calm down.

And with that David reluctantly left the mess hall making sure that the doors were closed.

 

\--------------

  
David was currently situated in his cabin that was now almost completely empty except for a few bags that belonged to himself Gwen and Max, he was trying desperately to get in contact with Max’s parents in some way.

But no matter how many times that he called the number that was given to the camp, it all ended in the same way. “The number you have reached is not in service or temporarily disconnected.”

David slammed down the phone in frustration. “Why would they write down a phone number that doesn’t even work?” David question as he looked back at forms were the phone number was written down.

‘They couldn’t have abandoned Max could they?’ The redhead thought to himself as he paced back and forth around his small cabin just desperately trying to think of something anything that he could do to fix this.

“Oh god, what am I going to do?” David thought to himself as he made his way towards the door, he was intending on going to see how Max was doing.

David had left the young boy with Gwen, but he made sure to tell her that Max needed some time to himself and that she should only stay outside of the Mess hall to make sure that he didn’t attempt to run away or cause any trouble in someway.

The man walked along the dirt path which led towards the Mess hall. As David walked along the path he was fully able to see just how empty the camp was, all the tents were put down and put away and all the equipment were stored away for next year.

David was always disappointed when ever camp was over, if he could he would gladly keep the camp open all year round, but this would be impossible.

The camp was in a series of dept and cutbacks, David wasn't even fully sure if they would be able to stay open in the next few years.

He didn’t know what to do, if he were to ever lose the camp, he would just collapse.

David let out a quiet sigh as he just remembered what was really important, he needed to help Max in anyway that he could and getting worried over the uncertain faith of the camp won’t do anything.

David needed to get to the Mess hall and he needed to tell Gwen what was happening, maybe she could think of what to do. Gwen was always more competent in these types of situations, she would never get emotional she would always keep a calm head, David just hoped that she would find a solution to this very unfortunate situation.

As David walked closer towards the Mess hall he could see Gwen who was currently sitting on a chair that she had brought and reading her book.

As the male counselor came into Gwen’s view she quickly set down the book and stood up. “So do you know what’s going on with his parents, when will they be here?” Gwen asked as she stretched her arms high up in the sky.

“David, what’s wrong?” Gwen asked as she looked directly at David, she could tell that something was bothering him greatly. David didn’t answer her question of concern.

“David what’s wrong?” Gwen asked again in a slightly more demanding tone of voice.

The redheaded man remained silent for a few seconds as Gwen continued to glare at him in confusion, then the man suddenly spoke up. “It’s, it’s Max.” the man stated in a quiet whisper.

“Jesus David what did he do this time?” Gwen asked in an annoyed tone of voice as she crossed her arms over her chest. “What no no, It’s not about Max!” David quickly spoke up completely forgetting to keep his voice down so that Max wouldn’t know that they were talking about him.

“Well, okay it is about Max, but not that way.” David explained to the still confused Gwen in a much quieter tone of voice hoping that Max wouldn’t be able to hear him.

“David what are you talking about, what is going on?” Gwen asked just hoping that she could start to understand just what was going on.

The man stood there in silence for several seconds as he just needed some time before he’d fully explain to Gwen what was going on, he looks a long breath and looked at her.

“It’s his parents, I think they abandoned Max.” the male counselor explained to her in a tone that was mixed between both sadness and disgust.

Gwen wasn’t too sure how she should react to this sudden knowledge, was this just some kind of joke or was he for real. “David, Max’s parents are always this late, I’m sure they’re on the way.” Gwen tried to use reason for the situation, this wasn't the first time that they had been late to pick up Max.

“No Gwen, I really think that’s what happened, I tried calling them but the number doesn't even go through to anyone, I tried emailing them but they won’t respond. I think they gave us a fake address Gwen.” the more David spoke the more he felt this eyes beginning to tear up as he described all of his failed attempts to contact Max’s parents.

“Are you absolutely positive about this David, this isn’t just some kind of joke is it?” the female counselor asked desperately hoping that she would hopefully get a different answer from him.

“Why would I joke about something like this.” David answered back in a panic as he couldn't stand the thought of making this troubling situation into a sick joke.

“Oh god, oh shit.” Gwen was now beginning to panic.

“What are we supposed to do?” David asked.

“We need to contact somebody, the police or child protective services.” Gwen explained in a clearly stressed tone of voice as she tried to calm herself down but to no effect.

David just felt his stomach tense up as he tried to imagine just how traumatizing it would be for Max to deal with being talked to by both the police and child protective services all by himself, David couldn’t let that happen he didn’t want it to happen. “Should we call them?” Gwen spoke in an unsure tone of voice.

“No, no we can’t do that not yet, it’s just too soon,” the man spoke quietly as he ran his hand through his hair.

“I think it would be better for Max if we try to ease him into this.” David suggested as he looked towards the doors of the Mess hall.

Gwen didn’t respond to him but she nodded her head in agreement, they needed to treat this whole situation with care. “I’ll bring him over to the sheriff's department tomorrow, okay” David asked as he looked over towards Gwen.

“Okay.” Gwen agreed.

“Do you want me to come with you, maybe it would be better for Max if the both of use were with him.” the female counselor offered hoping that she could maybe help with the situation.

“No I don’t think Max would be comfortable with the both of us with him, it might overwhelm him.” David answered back to Gwen.

“Besides, you need to start leaving soon.” David reminded Gwen as he knew that she lived much further away than him, and she had a friend that was picking her up a few miles away from camp.

“Are you sure, I can just call my friend and say that I just need to stay here for a little longer, it’s no problem.” Gwen stated as she tried to maybe change David’s mind.

Gwen just felt like she should do more to help much more than what she was currently doing.

Though the man found her offer to be very sweet, he knew that Max would be very uncomfortable with both himself and Gwen with him, David knew that Max wasn’t entirely comfortable around him.

“I’ll drop you down to where your friend is waiting, and after that I’ll take Max over to Sal, he’ll know what to do.” David calmly explained as he proceeded to enter the Mess hall with Gwen right behind him.

David knew for a fact that Gwen wouldn’t be able to drive all the way over to the sheriff's department, since David had his own car he would drop Gwen off to where her friend could pick her up and he could continue to drive Max to the sheriff's office.

They both walked a few feet into the massive open space that was the Mess hall, by this point most of the lights had been either broken or turned off, this was most likely done by Max.

The only sound that the two counselors could hear was the repetitive ticking of the old clock that was hung in the very back of the room.

“Max?” David quietly called out for the boy making sure not too startled him by being too loud.

David stopped this once he made his way over to the table were the young boy was seated, Max was there at the table he appeared to be asleep. He must have passed out from exhaustion though this wasn’t much of a shock especially considering everything that he had been through.

The red headed man slowly walked towards the sleeping child and gently lifted him off from the table and cradled Max in his arms. Gwen had decided to stay a few feet behind David just in case he needed some room or if she would accidentally get in the way and cause even more problems.

She watches as David carried the sleeping child over towards her, once David was close enough to Gwen he stopped in his tracks looking directly at her. “Can you grab Max’s bags, there in the cabin.” David asked her in a hushed tone as he didn’t want to wake Max up.

Gwen nodded in agreement and quickly ran out of the Mess hall and towards the cabin to retrieve Max’s things.

David slowly walked out of the Mess hall and into the cold open campground, the wind was harsh and cold as the man’s face was assaulted by the harsh elements of the cold.

The camp counselor held Max close to him making sure that he was comfortable so he wouldn’t wake up. David let out a quiet sigh as he proceeded to walk towards the main cabin of the camp.


	3. Left behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn why Max's parents still hadn't shown up to pick him up and David just tries his best to fix this situation.

“Here you go Max, sorry for the long wait.” David apologized as he gently set down the plate of freshly prepared food on the table where Max was seated yet again.

It was a plate of freshly cooked pasta with a decent amount of tomato sauce along with some kind of herbs, but Max couldn't quite tell what type of herbs they were, they were either basil or parsley.

Either way Max didn’t really care, as long as it was at least edible he was fine.

The young boy sat there just staring at the food for a few seconds as he slowly poked the pasta with his fork, he wasn’t too sure if he could really trust that David of all people could really manage to cook something that was even remotely edible.

Knowing David he had probably accidentally put rat poison in the sauce instead of using herbs or that the pasta was under-cooked, Max couldn't help but think that there had to be something wrong with the food in some way shape or form.

But after a few more seconds of silently looking at the food Max was fed up with the constant feeling of hunger and just said fuck it and took a decent bit of the pasta and quickly shoved it into his mouth.

To the surprise of the young ten year old the pasta was actually somewhat decent, in fact it wasn’t just decent it was actually quite good, it was really good.

“There wasn’t really much for me to work with, so I hope this is okay.” David suddenly spoke up breaking Max’s attention from the food.

“It’s fine David.” Max stated in a clearly irritated tone of voice.

“That’s, good to hear” he said with a sigh of relief as he was just thrilled that Max didn’t completely hate his cooking.

“If you need anything else don’t be afraid to ask okay.” David suggested as he gave Max a reassuring pat on the shoulder.  
Max obviously ignored the man and primary focused on his food, it was almost finished by this point and the young boy was nearly full.

So Max took the last remaining parts of the pasta and ate them, finally finishing his plate.

“You really enjoyed that didn’t you Max?” Gwen laughed as she finally took her attention away from her book and towards the young camper.

David smiled at the fact that Max had actually enjoyed something that he had done, even if he didn’t fully admit it the man could tell.

“Yeah only because it’s decent compared to the fucking slob that we were fed for the past three months!” Max angrily protested as he pushed the plate aside causing a slight sound as the plate slid across the wooden table.

“Oh you didn't deny that you like it!” The female counselor laughed again causing Max to become more irritated and defensive as she had just found that Max had liked David's cooking.

“Shut up!” Max yelled, his face was a dark shade of red clearly from embarrassment at being called out by the female counselor.

Max was getting more embarrassed by the second, he had just proved to Gwen that he really did like the food by getting mad and defensive at her claims.

The young child cursed himself for getting defensive and causing a scene, he might as well just come out and say that he enjoyed David’s cooking.

“Come on Gwen, you don’t need to tease Max.” David suddenly spoke up in a rather stern tone of voice as he placed a glass of water down on the table for Max to drink.

Gwen’s once loud fit of laughter slowly died down to nothing but a soft chuckle. “Okay, okay I’ll stop teasing him.” The still giddy counselor promised as she looked at Max who was trying his best to ignore her.

“It’s okay Max, you don’t need to feel embarrassed.” David spoke to the boy.

“...yeah whatever.” Max stated as he grabbed the glass and took a rather large drink.

David lightly patted Max on the shoulder, the boy didn’t fight his or pushed him away, he just gave up and let it happen.

The red headed man then proceeded to head over towards Gwen who’s attention was now back to her book yet again.

 

_____________

 

Max looks at the old clock that was hanging on the wall by a single rusty nail, the hands of the clock pointed that it was now currently 10am his parents were about seven hours late, this was the latest that they had ever been.

‘What the fuck is taking them so long?’ The young boy thought to himself as he continued to stare at the clock hoping that maybe by doing this his parents would arrive soon.

“Fucking bastards.” Max spoke under his breath as he shoved both of his hands in his hoodie pocket.

He couldn’t believe that they did this again, he never understood why they would always do this every year, all they had to do was to just show up on time and they couldn’t even do that simple task.

What the hell was he even thinking, of course they wouldn’t arrive on time why the hell would this year be any different, why the hell did he believe them.

Max didn’t know why he was so upset about this, he was perfectly fine about them being late for the first few years so why was he getting upset by this now?.

“Max” A quiet voice called out making the young boy jump out of his skin.

‘Fuck how long was David here?’ The surprised child thought to himself.

He turned around to see David only standing a few feet away from where he was sitting, but Max noticed something was wrong with the man, he looked like something was bothering him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Max asked angrily as he hoped that his aggressive attitude would maybe drive the annoying man away.

Obviously this plan didn’t work, it never did no matter how rude Max was or how much that he had hurt David both physically or mentally, no matter how many horrible events that Max had caused for the camp counselor he would still always treat the young boy with the same amount of respect and care.

And that was what confused Max the most.

“Max I know that this might be a bit of a ‘strange’ question but,” the man stopped talking halfway through his sentence, he continued to struggle with his words for several seconds.

“What the fuck are you trying to say?” the now annoyed Max asked as he found the mumbling to be extremely irritating.

“Right, well it’s just,” David paused for a few seconds as Max continued to glared at him. “The phone number that you’re parents wrote down, it doesn’t go through to anyone.”

For a few seconds Max wasn’t hearing anything around him, he couldn’t hear the counselor speaking or the ticking of the clock, it was almost like his whole world was stripped of sound.

Max was almost at a loss of words, for a few seconds he heard nothing but the loud repetitive thumps of his heart like a beat to a drum.

“W-what do you mean it won’t go through?” Max yelled at David clearly showing the man that he was shocked by this knowledge.

But Max wasn’t just shocked, he was scared.

“No Max it’s okay, I’m sure that there’s a-”

“HOW THE FUCK IS THIS OKAY?!” Max screamed causing David to jump back out of pure shock.

He had never ever seen Max this upset before, no this was the first time that David had ever seen Max scared.

It was clear as day that he was extremely scared, the young boy was shaking, his breathing had become labored and the corner of his eyes had began to tear up.

David instantly rushed over to the clearly panicked boy and tried his best to calm him down. “Max, kiddo I know that this might be a bit upsetting, but we both need to stay calm.” He said in a calm and understanding tone.

“Look I’ll try to see if I can contact them through email, and if that doesn’t work, then I’ll think of something.” David stated to Max who wasn’t even listening to a single word that he said.

Max couldn’t believe what was happening to him, his parents had abandoned him they had really abandoned him.

“Max.” David began to speak again.

“Leave me alone.” The demanded in a cold tone as he tried to hide his face from David.

David tried to get the child to look at him, but this only caused the frightened child to pull his hoodie over his head in another attempt to ignore the man.

“Just leave me alone.” Max asked again but this time his voice was in a much more weaker tone like he was struggling to hold back the tears that were building up inside of him.

“Okay, I’ll promise Max I’ll do everything I can to make this right.” The man promised as he patted Max gently on the back.

Max shifted his body into the opposite direction from the man, the last thing that he needed was pity.

David got the message that the boy just wanted to be alone for now, though David really didn’t want to leave Max alone especially in the current state that he was in.

But the least that the counselor could do was to give Max some time to calm down.

And with that David left the mess hall making well sure that the doors were closed.

 

______________

 

David was currently situated in his cabin that was now almost completely empty except for a few bags that belonged to himself Gwen and to Max, he was trying desperately to get in contact with Max’s parents in some way.

But no matter how many times that he called the number that was given to the camp, it all ended in the same way.

“The number you have reached is not in service or temporarily disconnected.”

David slammed down the phone in frustration. “Why would they write down a phone number that doesn’t even work?” David question as he looked back at forms were the phone number was written down.

‘They couldn’t have abandoned Max could they?’ The redhead thought to himself as he paced back and forth around his small cabin just desperately trying to think of something anything.

“Oh god, what am I going to do?” David thought to himself as he made his way towards the door, he was intending on going to see how Max was doing.

David had left the young boy with Gwen, but he made sure to tell her that Max needed some time to himself and that she should only stay outside of the Mess hall to make sure that he didn’t attempt to run away.

The man walked along the dirt path which leaded towards the Mess hall, as David walked along the path he was fully able to see just how empty the camp was, all the tents were put down and put away and all the equipment were stored away for next year.

David was always disappointed when ever camp was over, if he could he would gladly keep the camp open all year round, but this would be impossible.

The camp was in a series of dept and cutbacks, David wasn't even fully sure if they would be able to stay open in the next few years.

He didn’t know what to do, if he were to ever lose the camp, he would just collapse.

David let out a quiet sigh as he just remembered what was really important, he needed to help Max in anyway that he could and getting worried over the uncertain faith of the camp won’t do anything.

David needed to get to the Mess hall and he needed to tell Gwen what was happening, maybe she could think of what to do.

Gwen was always more competent in these types of situations, she would never get emotional she would always keep a calm head, David just hoped that she would find a solution to this very unfortunate situation.

As David walked closer towards the Mess hall he could see Gwen who was currently sitting on a chair that she had brought and reading her book.

As the male counselor came into Gwen’s view she quickly set down the book and stood up. “So do you know what’s going on with his parents, when will they be here?” Gwen asked as she stretched her arms high up in the sky.

“David, what’s wrong?” Gwen asked as she looked directly at David, she could tell that something was bothering him greatly.

David didn’t answer her question of concern. “David what’s wrong?” Gwen asked again in a slightly more demanding tone of voice.

The redheaded man remained silent for a few seconds as Gwen continued to glare at him in confusion, then the man suddenly spoke up. “It’s, it’s Max.” the man stated in a quiet whisper.

“Jesus David what did he do this time?” Gwen asked in an annoyed tone of voice as she crossed her hands over her chest, honestly there was never a break for her even when the Camp is closed.

“What no no, It’s not about Max!” David quickly spoke up completely forgetting to keep his voice down so that Max wouldn’t know that they were talking about him.

“Well, okay it is about Max, but not that way.” David explained to the still confused Gwen in a much more quieter tone of voice hoping that Max wouldn’t be able to hear him.

“David what are you talking about, what going on?” Gwen asked just hoping that she could start to understand just what was going on.

The man stood there in silence for several seconds as he just needed some time before he’d fully explain to Gwen what was going on, he look a long breath and looked at her.

“It’s his parents, I think they abandoned Max.” the male counselor explained to her in a tone that was mixed between both sadness and disgust.

Gwen wasn’t too sure how she should react to this sudden knowledge, what this a joke or was he for real. “David, Max’s parents are always late, I’m sure they’re on the way.” Gwen tried to use reason for the situation, this wasn't the first time that they had been late to pick up Max.

“No Gwen, I really think that’s what’s happened, I tried calling them but the number doesn't even go through to anyone, I tried emailing them but they won’t respond, and they gave us a fake address Gwen.” the more David spoke the more he felt this eyes beginning to tear up as he described all of his failed attempts to contact Max’s parents.

“Are you absolutely positive about this David, this isn’t just some joke is it?” the female counselor asked desperately hoping that she would hopefully get a different answer.

“Why would I joke about something like this.” David answered back in a panic as he couldn't stand the thought of making this troubling situation into a joke.

“Oh god, oh shit.”

“What are we supposed to do?” David asked.

“We need to contact somebody, the police or child protective services.” Gwen explained in a clearly stressed tone of voice as she tried to calm herself down but to no effect.

David just felt his stomach tense up as he tried to imagined just how traumatizing it would be for Max to deal with talked to by both the police and child protective services all by himself, David couldn’t let that happen he didn’t want it happen.

“Should we call them?” Gwen spoke in a unsure tone of voice.

“No, no we can’t do that not yet, it’s just too soon,” the man spoke quietly as he ran his hand through his hair.

“I think it would be better for Max if we try to ease him into this.” David suggested as he looked towards the doors of the Mess hall.

Gwen didn’t respond to him but she nodded her head in agreement, they needed to treat this whole situation with care.

“I’ll bring him over to the sheriff's department tomorrow, okay” David asked as he looked over towards Gwen.

“Okay.” Gwen agreed.

“Do you want me to come with you, maybe it would be better for Max if the both of use were with him.” the female counselor offered hoping that she could maybe help with the situation.

“No I don’t think Max would be comfortable with the both of use with him, it might overwhelm him.” David answered back to Gwen.

“Besides, you need to start leaving soon.” David reminded Gwen as he knew that she lived much further away than him, and she had a friend that was picking her up a few miles away from camp.

“Are you sure, I can just call my friend and say that I just need to stay here for a little longer, it’s no problem.” Gwen stated as she tried to maybe change David’s mind.

Gwen just felt like she should do more to help much more than what she was currently doing.

Though the man found her offer to be very sweet, he knew that Max would be very uncomfortable with both himself and Gwen with him, David knew that Max wasn’t entirely comfortable around him.

“I’ll drop you down to where your friend is waiting, and after that I’ll take Max over to Sal, he’ll know what to do.” David calmly explained as he proceeded to enter the Mess hall with Gwen right behind him.

David knew for a fact that Gwen wouldn’t be able to drive all the way over to the sheriff's department, since David had his own car he would drop Gwen off to where her friend could pick her up and he could continue to drive Max to the sheriff's office.

They both walked a few feet into the massive open space that was the Mess hall, by this point most of the lights had been either broken or turned off, this was most likely done by Max.

The only sound that the two counselors could hear was the repetitive ticking of the old clock that was hanged in the very back of the room.

“Max?” David quietly called out for the boy making sure not too startle him by being too loud.

David stopped this once he made his way over to the table were the young boy was seated, Max was there at the table he appeared to be asleep, he must have fallen asleep out of exhaustion though this wasn’t much of a shock especially considering everything that he had been through.

The red headed man slowly walked towards the sleeping child and gently lifted him off from the table and cradled Max in his arms, Gwen had decided to stayed a few feet behind David just in case if he needed some room or if she would accidentally get in the way and cause even more problems.

She watch as David carried the sleeping child over towards her, once David was close enough to Gwen he stopped in his tracks looking directly at her. “Can you grab Max’s bags, there in the cabin.” David asked her in a hushed tone as he didn’t want to wake Max up.

Gwen nodded in agreement and quickly ran out of the Mess hall and towards the cabin to retrieve Max’s things.

David slowly walked out of the Mess hall and into the cold open campground, the wind was harsh and cold as the man’s face was assaulted by the harsh elements of the cold.

The camp counselor held Max close to him making sure that he was comfortable so he wouldn’t wake up.

David let out a quiet sigh as he proceeded to walk towards the main cabin of the camp.


	4. A midnight drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a chapter that forces on developing the characters as they make their way over to Sleepy Peek.

Max couldn’t quite remember just what had happened for the last few hours after David told him about his parents, all he remembered was the haunting feeling of his entire world collapsing around him.

Once Max heard those words slip through David’s lips he felt like the ground had just dropped out from under him and he was just falling.

He just felt so… helpless just the fact that his own parents would do this to him was the worst feeling in the world.

But that didn’t even compare to the feeling of uncertainty that he had felt for the rest of the day, just the fear of not knowing what would happen to him next, that was the most terrifying experience that he had ever faced. 

He didn’t know much of what happened after the male counselor had left him in the Mess hall, all he could manage to remember was the feeling of hot tears running down his face, then Max remembered the ruff feeling of his hoodie sleeve being rubbed violently against his eyes.

The young boy tried to stop himself from crying, Max tried his very best to just get over what he was currently feeling at that time, he rubbed the sleeve of his hoodie ruffly against his eyes in a desperate attempt to hide his tears, he just felt so pathetic and weak.

The fact that he had an emotional breakdown right in front of David of all people just made Max want to die from embarrassment, how could he have made such a fucking fool of himself.

Max cursed to himself for how he had acted in front of the man.

He was much stronger than that, he was better than that. Just remembering how he broke down in tears just filled the boy with dread and despair. 

But after the boy’s long desperate attempts to calm himself down and his attempts to just forget about what just happened, Max couldn’t remember anything but darkness after David had left. 

He had passed out not too long after David had left the Mess hall, the young boy had probably just passed out from exhaustion both mentally and physically.

After several long hours the young boy had finally began to stir awake, Max didn’t know what was even happening, all he knew was that he wasn’t in the Mess hall anymore he wasn’t at Camp Campbell anymore.

A flash of bright light ran across his face, then another bright flash and another each one of these bright flashes of lights slowly brought Max back to the land of the living.

Max’s eyes slowly opened, his vision was still a good bit blurry and another flash of light instantly made the tired boy cover his eyes from the bright assault of his senses. 

Max’s vision was then quickly back into darkness due to the fact that he didn’t want to be constantly bombarded by the annoying source of light anytime soon.

And while Max was sitting in his seat he could hear the subtle hum of the car’s stereo, it was currently playing some annoying song that appeared to be some kind of country music that the young boy couldn’t stand to listen to.

The still tired boy looked around his surroundings only to see that he was in a moving car. 

To be more specific he was in the backseat of a moving car right next to the left side window. Why the hell was he in a car of all places, did his parents finally show up.

A few quick glimpses around the interior of the car proved this theory dead wrong, it was much to clean to be his parent’s car and the whole interior of the car just looked too different to be his parent’s car.

There were absolutely no scratches or tears in any of the seats, the dashboard was completely cleared of any kind of clutter. And the floor of the car’s interior was free from any kind of dirt, there wasn’t even any stains on the fabric. 

Max wondered about who the car belonged to, but as he thought of that Max could hear that someone was talking, they weren’t speaking in a loud tone to begin with and with the annoying overbearing county music playing over the person's voice did nothing to help Max understand what they were talking about.

But then he heard it. “How far do you think we are?” the voice asked to someone else and Max clearly didn't know it was.

“Um, it’s a good few miles I think.” the second person answered back in a rather unsure tone of voice almost as if they weren’t even sure of how far they have traveled.

Clearly there were currently two people in the front of the car, and Max suddenly came to the realization of exactly who was behind the wheel of the car, it was both David and Gwen who were driving him to god knows where.

Why were they of all people driving him? where were they even taking him. Max couldn’t understand why he was in a car with the two camp counselors in the first place.

“Hey Gwen?” David suddenly spoke up getting both Gwen’s and Max’s full attention to what he was going to say.  
Gwen quickly turned the volume of the car’s radio down to nothing but a quiet hum so she could fully hear what David was going to say.

“Yeah.” Gwen answered back as she looked over towards the man was concentrating on watching the road ahead of him.

The man remained silent for a few seconds, he just silently stared out into the darkness ahead of him watching as the bright light from the headlights of the car cut through the cold darkness of the empty road.

Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” David finally spoke up in a rather unsure tone of voice. 

Gwen sighed at his uncertainty. “Of course, David this is the best we can do for him.” she answered back in a confident tone that just screamed that she knew for a fact that this was the best option for them to take.

Max felt extremely uncomfortable at the fact that both David and Gwen were talking about him.

They both probably thought that he was still asleep and that he couldn’t hear their conversation, if they knew he was awake then they wouldn’t dare talk about him.

Still despite the fact that Max would have rather them remaining silent for the whole entire drive, he was a bit curious about what they were talking about.

So the young boy made an extra effort to pay attention to what they were saying, thankfully now that the music was at a lower volume it wasn’t anywhere near hard to hear what the two adults were saying.

“I don’t know about this Gwen, I just feel like I should be doing more to help him you know.” David answered in a slightly upset tone he was clearly hurting from this.

“David,” Gwen spoke up in a slightly louder tone of voice causing Max to almost jump out of shock from the abrupt tone that the women spoke in. “You need to stop with this, right now.” she stated in demanding tone of voice.

The female counselor was clearly annoyed about how David was still feeling guilty about the whole situation, it was almost like the man was blaming himself for what happened today which was just completely ridiculous in Gwen’s opinion.

She just couldn’t stand how David was still questioning if he was doing enough to help the young boy who they both thought was still fast asleep in the back seat.

“I’m sorry Gwen, I know it can be annoying to hear me getting upset over every little thing but …” David just tried to keep a positive and calm tone of voice, but each word that the man uttered the more regretful and upset he became.

He just couldn’t help but think about what he should be doing to help Max. “I just can’t stand the fact that I feel like I’m just dumping him off to someone else.” David explained to Gwen as he tried his best to hide the huge amount of guilt that he was feeling right now.

“David, you’re doing the best you can, this is the best we can do right now.” Gwen spoke in a slightly more calmer tone as she tried to be more understanding in how David was feeling about the situation.

The two camp counselors soon fell back into silence as they both silently stared out into the darkness, after a few more seconds of silence passed with still no words being spoken between the two of them.

Gwen decided that maybe some music would help break the awkward silence that had fallen in the car.

Max was surprised about what he was hearing from the two adults, what did David mean by dumping him off to someone else, he must be taking him to the police that much was obvious.

“Fuck.” Max said under his breath in the quietest way he could so that the two counselors couldn't hear him, Max knew full well how this whole situation would end. First it would be the police and then it would be dealing with child protective services.

Max knew what would happen to him once they would get involved, he would be thrown into the system until he hits the age of eighteen.

That wasn't the future that Max wanted, he didn’t want to be just another troubled child in the system. 

Max knew that in the united states alone there were about 400,000 children from infants to 21 year old that were left to rot, and wasn’t going to be one of those fucking numbers.

In the span of a few seconds the annoying county tune was now back on once again filling the vehicle with the annoying sound of banjos and drums, this source of annoying music played for only a few seconds until it was abruptly replaced with a loud buzzing sound.

Gwen had changed to another radio station. “Christ David, you really need to get some new taste in music.” Gwen stated in a joking tone as she tried to find another radio station.

The sudden cheerful attitude from Gwen seemed to be very contagious as David couldn’t help but find himself laughing. “Hey I quite like country music for your information, it calms me.” David stated as he tried to defend his taste in music.

“Honestly, the only people who actually enjoy country music is backwoods hillbillies and people in their late 50s.” Gwen laughed out as she finally found the right station to her satisfaction.

The car was then filled with the sound of a loud drum beat and a young woman singing in an energetic tone, this sudden loud music caused Max to suddenly jump up in his seat out of pure shock, thankfully none of the two counselors noticed this in the slightest. 

“Oh I finally think I just found something good.” as Gwen spoke her voice was soon drowned out by the energetic singing of a fast paced pop song.

She then slightly turned down the music to a less overbearing volume.

“Ohhh so this is the kind of music that you’re into, couldn’t have guessed that.” the man spoke in a surprisingly uncharacteristically sarcastic tone that was completely unexpected for David of all people. 

Honestly Max couldn't help but slightly smile at the incredibly stupid banter between the two idiot counselors and their awful taste in music, the whole thing almost reminded the young boy of how things use to be back at camp just a few weeks ago.

Max just sat back in the car seat as he listened along to the song that was currently playing in the car, Max would mostly just ignore the lyrics to most of the songs that he would listen too, he would mainly focus on the beat of the song instead of the singer.

The young boy looked out through the passenger side window as the car continued to drive by the surrounding area.

Max was surprised to find out that they were still in the woods, they mustn’t have gotten far from the camp if they were still around the surrounding forest, Max probably hadn’t been asleep for that long based off how far they have gotten.

Honestly it was almost like they weren’t even moving forwards at this point, it was like they were stuck in an endless loop of the same few trees, it was almost like they were driving in an endless circle. 

How long were they even driving for the boy thought as he looked over out the other side of the car hoping that maybe he would see something different, Max silently sighed to himself.

How long were they driving for a few minutes a few hours even, Max honestly couldn’t even tell exactly how long they were out there just. At this point it just felt like they were aimlessly driving deeper and deeper into the woods.

Max just felt like he was trapped in that car for years and he wanted more than anything to get out.

The boy thought that maybe finding something to distract himself from the inescapable feeling of tediousness that had fallen into him, maybe if he found anything it would help to make the drive go by a little bit faster.

The bored and still tired boy looked out through the slightly dirt stained window to the dark surrounding forest that screeched miles upon miles of land.

It seemed like the forest was almost never ending. 

The trees that littered the land stretched up high in the dark night sky almost like they were the twisted arms that belonged to a group of horrifying creatures that were trying to dig their way out from the ground where they were trapped in.

The leaves from the tall trees were violently ripped from their branches as the harsh winds blew right through them, the leaves flew in the air for a few seconds only to fall right to the ground as the car drove past.

Looking out from the car’s window did absolutely nothing to help the time pass by, surprisingly enough it turns out that only seeing the same looking trees for several minutes straight quickly became boring and tedious.

And after a few more seconds of staring at the same trees Max just leaned back against his seat in defeat, he his closed eyes as he tried to get just a little bit more comfortable in the seat.

The young boy was honestly amazed at just how tired one could be, he had never felt this tired before.

The fact that he could actually sleep in the uncomfortable back seat of a car that belonged to a man that he couldn’t stand was just a complete shock to Max, but he guessed that it wasn’t all that much of a surprise.

Max could sleep just about anywhere just as long as he could sit or lay down then he was set, sure he would usually wake up with a fucked up back but that honestly didn’t bother him that much. 

As Max laid back in the car seat he could feel himself slowly drifting off to sleep yet again, at first it took quite a while for the young boy to fall back asleep.

His head would slightly shift and fall to his left side, and this sudden tilt of his head would always caused Max to quickly shift back awake due to the sudden movement.

Max thought for a few seconds about maybe removing his seat belt, as he found that the belt that was meant for is safety to be both uncomfortable and very irritating.

The boy had felt like the belt was constantly tightening and becoming even more overbearing as the seconds ticked by.

The tips of Max’s finger were only a few inches away from the bright red buckle that held the troublesome seat belt in its place, it was honestly just so tempting for Max to just press the buckle and release the tight seat belt.

But just before Max could complete this simple task, he quickly stopped himself as he soon came to the realization that the sound of the buckle clicking open might alert both David and Gwen to the fact that he was currently awake, this was the very last thing that Max wanted.

He didn’t need the both of them constantly throwing multiple difficult questions at him.

Especially not right after everything that happened today, knowing David he’d probably already told Gwen about everything that had occurred earlier that evening.

No probably not, he definitely told her everything that happened in the Mess hall, Max could feel his face heat up as he imagined what was going to happen when he would eventually have to face both of the adults and their endless onslaught of questions.

While the boy knew that he couldn’t avoid this forever he sure as hell was going to try his very best to avoid it for as long as he could.

____________________

By the time they had finally left the forest that surrounded the camp they had been driving for more than a whole hour, it was now currently 12:30 over five hours since Camp Campbell had officially ended and three hours since Max’s parents had abandoned him.

The car came to a sudden stop at what appeared to be a rundown gas station that was located in the middle of nowhere, a few seconds after the vehicle stopped the music from the car’s radio was abruptly cut off.

Max looked out from his passenger side window only to be met with a rather large gas station.

Max wasn’t even complete sure if the establishment was even open to begin with, the large bright fluorescent lights that littered the large empty space flickered causing a constant buzzing sound that reminded Max of the irritating bugs that lived in the wilderness around Camp Campbell. 

A few seconds after the car had fully came to a stop Max’s thoughts were soon interrupted as he heard the sound of both front passenger doors opening and slamming shut along with the car being locked not too long after.

This was then followed by a bright light that instantly lit up the whole entire interior of the car for a few seconds only to then fade back into darkness a few seconds after.

Max watched as both David and Gwen made there way over towards the entrance of the Gas station.

Once they made their way towards the door they both disappeared into the building.

The young boy let out a sigh of relief as he was just thankful that neither one of them had yet noticed that he was awake, he had managed to avoid an award talk from so far, if he was lucky and smart enough he could maybe avoid it altogether.

If he would just sleep through the entire drive until they reach the police station, then he would just completely ignore David until he would eventually leave, but the best possible solution would be that David would just dump him off and let the police handle him.

Max knew that this would definitely be the case, he knew that despite all of David’s bullshit lies of saying that he was a good kid and that he just wants him to be happy.

The young boy knew from the very beginning that it was all just a huge lie, it was just a delusion from a stubborn man who didn’t want to face reality who wanted to pretend that everything was fine when in reality it wasn’t.

Max thought back to how David acted on parents day a few weeks ago.

that was honestly the first time that he had seen the man dropped his act and actually talk like a real adult, Max was just in shock about this even several days after it happened.

For those several days Max really thought that maybe just maybe David had changed, but of course he didn’t, he just went straight back to pretending that everything was alright.

He ignored that Campbell was shipped out to prison, he ignored that the camp was in financial troubles, he just ignored every single problem that occurred after that day.

Max wasn’t even mad at the man, he was mad at himself for even believing for a second that David was actually sincere about what he had told him that night.

He knew, from the very beginning that it was all a lie.


	5. Rest stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mainly just the group hanging around a Gas Station, and also a little conversation between an original character.

The interior of the small brightly lit gas station wasn’t special by any means. It just looked like any average gas station that one could find all over the country in every state, with the only distinguishing characteristic being the many different poster and pamphlets plastered on the front windows of the building.

The rather small interior of the gas station was completely filled with fully stocked shelves and tall cold freezers that stretched across at the very back of the building revealing a wall of soft drinks and many different types of liquor that was just covered by a thin panel of glass.

David slowly walked down by one through one of the many stocked shelves in the search of something kind of snack that he could get for Max in case he was hungry and needed something to eat.

He wanted to find something decently healthy for the young boy, but a local gas station isn’t the best place to find healthy food and David quickly came to that realization when he found nothing but junk food.

David looked at his current options as he tried his best to see if there was anything even remotely healthy to pick from, but the only options were nothing but unhealthy fatty foods that weren’t anywhere near healthy for Max.

The man decided to go and look around the rest of the station, there had to be at least some kind of healthy snacks available in the building.

David’s eyes scanned the shelves as he passed by each one of the colorful candy packets and wrappers that littered the shelves, the only thing he could hear was his shoes walking along the worn tile floor and the subtle hum of the radio that was placed at the front desk.

After the counselor had passed several more shelves he fully stopped in his tracks, something had caught David’s eye. This item completely stood out from the multicolored candy wrappers that filled the small store.

There at the very back of the gas station David had found several different types of granola bars, along with a few other healthy snacks stocked on several shelves like some bags of mixed nuts and what looked like kale chips.

David was quick to pick out the types of granola bars that he thought would be good enough for Max to eat, he picked out a few honey and maple bars along with one bag of mixed nuts.

The man continued to walk along the back of the building while Gwen was located at the front desk as she waited for him to finish.

By the time it took David too collected everything that he needed about fifteen minutes had past, and by this point Gwen was beginning to wonder just what was taking the man so long to finish this seemingly simple task.

But Gwen soon realized just who she was with, this was David and she knew that out of all the people he would spend most of his time checking and reading what type of ingredients were in the products.

The female counselor let out a bored sigh as she realized that this would take much longer than she had originally thought. With this unfortunate fact Gwen reached into her left front pocket of her jeans and pulled out her phone to check the time. Unfortunately this much needed information was only shown a single second right before her phone abruptly shut off. 

“Oh son of a bitch.” Gwen groaned in annoyance as she tried desperately to turn her phone back on in the hopes that it wasn’t dead.

She had completely forgotten to charge her phone all day, since this was the first time today that the young woman could even stand still without a massive problem popping up, and she had only charged her phone yesterday. 

“Overpriced piece of shit.” the defeated counselor stated under her breath as she quickly placed the dead phone back in her pocket as she found no use for it now. She really needed to buy a new phone soon or at least one with a better battery.

Gwen decided to ignore the phone for now and to just try and get the time from somewhere else. With this the woman then turned around and walked over to the front desk in the hopes that maybe the man behind the desk could at least tell her the time. 

“Excuse me, but do you happen to have the time.” she asked the clearly bored man who was only focusing on his phone, based off the sounds that were coming out of the phone’s speaker he was watching some kind of movie.

A few seconds had passed since Gwen had asked her question and the man hadn’t spoken a single word, she wasn’t entirely sure if the man had even heard her or if he was just deciding to ignore her all together. But just before she could even ask him again the man made a slight pointing motion with his right hand.

He was pointing up at an extremely old looking clock that was slightly cracked in the center, as Gwen looked up at the clock she was able to see that both of the hands were pointing at 12 meaning that it was currently midnight.

Satisfied with the answer to her question Gwen said her thanks to the man who still didn’t look up from his phone and walked over to where David was currently situated. “Hey I’m going to go wait outside okay.” she stated as she pointed over her shoulder towards the front door.

“Yeah sure thing, I’ll be done in a minute.” the man explained as he picked up two water bottles from the store’s drink section. “Here’s the keys in case you want to wait in the car.” David stated as he balanced the two bottles in his right hand and used his free hand to give her the car keys. 

With that said and done Gwen placed the keys in her hoodie’s front pocket and made her way to the front door while David walked over towards the front desk so he could pay for his few items.

As Gwen stepped out from the stuffy interior of the Gas station and into the cold dark exterior she instantly felt the night air hit her skin as she pushed the double doors open.

The plain glass doors closed shut right behind Gwen as she fully stepped out into the open car lot of the Gas station. Gwen looked out to the large open plot of land as the wind blew through her short hair and slightly opened jacket causing her to feel a slight cold sensation around her chest and back. Gwen was quick to fully zip up her jacket in an attempt to shield herself from the harsh cold air.

It was an uncharacteristic cold night and the only sound to break the dead silence was the loud howling of the night wind and the quite jingle of the keys as she walked around.

A rather unnerving part of this night that the young woman had just noticed was that there wasn’t even any remote sound of wildlife within miles. And this factor did nothing but to help further the feeling of isolation.

As the young woman stood there in the empty lot of the Gas station exterior she thought to herself for a rather long time on just what she should do next.

Maybe she should just go back and wait in the car for David to finish, no she might just end up waking Max by doing this and even Gwen knew that the last thing the young child needed right now was her annoying him.

But she soon realized that she could charge her phone in David’s car, she had her charger in her bag and as long as she was quite enough she wouldn’t disturb the sleeping child. 

And besides Max had somehow managed to sleep through the rather loud music and David and Gwen’s entire conversation, so just Gwen charging her phone wouldn’t be too much of a disturbance.

So with this plan in mind the young woman made her way to the parked car that was only a few feet away from the building and right beside a single gas pump.

As Gwen came to a stop by the parked car, she then proceeded to pull out the car’s keys from her hoodie’s pocket and tried her absolute best to open the front passenger door as quietly as possible.

She then slowly climbed into the car leaving the door slightly opened which caused the car’s lights to turn on for a few seconds before it eventually died down.

Gwen grabbed her bag from under the passenger seat and began to search through her bag, unfortunately Gwen wasn’t all that quiet while doing this task as she quickly pulled out several items from the bag and letting them fall to the ground below. 

“Where the hell is it?” She stated annoyance as she continued to dump the bag’s remaining content onto the ground. “What the fuck are you doing?” an annoyed voice called out which caused Gwen to slightly jump in her seat and dropped her bag to the ground as a result to the sudden noise.

She quickly turned around to find that Max was fully awake and in his usual tone of voice, he was currently sitting up right in the middle of the back seat with his hoodie full up and both of his hands in the front pocket.

Think that maybe he was cold due to the open door, so Gwen quickly closed the door.

“Hey, sorry if I woke you up.” She apologized as she reached down to the floor and pulled up the backpack, she then placed it over by the driver’s seat.

“It’s fine, I was already up.” the young boy quietly spoke as he looked out towards the Gas station. “Where’s David?” he asked.

“He’s just getting some things in the store, and knowing David it’ll take him some time to finish.” Gwen answered back in her dry tone as she continued to search through her bag.

Max didn’t respond to her answer and just sat in silence as he heard the female counselor searching through her bag. The young boy didn’t know what she was looking for and he didn’t care either. All he wanted right now was to just be alone and not have to deal with anyone's bullshit as he was really not in the mood.

“What are you even looking for?” Max asked out of annoyance and the fact that it was talking about the adult much too long to find what she was looking for.

Gwen let out a loud defeated sigh and quickly turned around. “I’m looking for my phone’s charger, you wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you?” she asked in the hopes that he could reveal the location of the much needed charger. “No.” Max answered back which didn’t help Gwen in the slightest. 

“Goddammit,” She sighed. “Where could I have put it?” She asked out loud to herself as she laid back in the car’s seat in defeat. “Fucking hell here.” Gwen turned around to see Max who was clearly annoyed at her, but in his hand was David’s phone. 

Gwen’s eyes instantly lit up as she took the phone from the boy’s hand. “Thanks but why do you have David’s phone?” the relieved yet confused counselor asked as she activated the phone.

“He left it there on the seat, so I just took it,” Max shrugged in response. “It didn’t even have any games on it.” the young boy quickly stated in an attempt to explain just what he was doing with the device at the time.

But knowing Max he was probably looking up something about blowing up a Gas station or how to hot wire a car, either way Gwen didn’t care and just tried to use the phone to make an important call.

“Hey I’m going to make a quick phone call, okay.” The boy simple nodded in response as he went back to looking out the window. Gwen then left the car and proceeded to dial her friends number.

Gwen wasn’t able to call anyone for a long time, since the camp had such a bad reception. and maybe now that they were a little bit closer to civilization she could finally call her friend. “Oh thank god.” Gwen sighed with relief as the call began to go through. Before leaving for the summer Gwen had made some previous arrangements with her roommate that she would come and pick her up after closing up the camp until the next summer. 

For the first few years of working at Camp Campbell it was always David who would help bring her home after the summer. And while Gwen really appreciated David doing that for her. Especially since she didn’t have any other way to get back home. other calling her parents which was something that she would rather not do, but now she had a really good friend who would be willing to give her a ride home.

Right now all she needed to do was to call her friend and ask for a lift home. Hopefully it wouldn’t take her too long to get there.

‘Lisa Thomson’ it read as Gwen waited for a few seconds as the call tried to go through, for a few moments Gwen was worried that the service wouldn’t be good enough to even make a call. But as the seconds passed by the young adult silently waited for her friend to answer the call.

The phone slightly hummed as the call tried to go through. 

“Gwen?” a concerned voice called out through the phone’s speaker Gwen quickly press the phone up to her right ear and answered her friend’s concerned call. “Yeah hey Lisa it’s me.” she answered back.

“You were supposed to call me a few hours ago, what happened?” Lisa loudly asked her friend in a rather confused tone of voice. Gwen instantly cursed her for forgetting to tell her that she was going to be a bit late, Gwen remained silent for a few seconds as she tried to think just how she could explain what was currently happening.

There was no way she could honestly tell her what was really happening, but she at least needed to come up with something to tell her.

Because knowing Lisa she wouldn’t be satisfied with nothing as an answer to her concerns, and she would just keep on asking until she’d get an answer to her satisfaction.

Gwen remain quiet for several more seconds as she carefully listened to the audio from the phone, by this point her friend was beginning to get rather worried about the long silence that had fallen between them.

“Gwen what’s wrong, what happened?” the girl asked in a more demanding tone of voice as she wanted to know just what was going on.

“Something… something happened at work today,” Gwen silently spoke. “And I had to stay back at camp for a little bit longer than usual.” she admitted to her friend just hoping that this was a good enough answer from Lisa to except.

They both remained silent for several seconds, several long uncomfortable seconds passed by with either one of them speaking a single word until Gwen heard a very subtle yet audible sigh coming from the other end.

“That camp is fucking cursed.” Lisa suddenly spoke up in a loud joking tone as she tried to lighten the mood.

This seemed to work as Gwen couldn't help but laugh at the rather fitting statement about her current place of work, honestly she couldn’t imagine anything better to describe that god awful place other than it being cursed.

“Honestly Gwen, I have no clue why you keep on coming back to that place every year?” this was something that Gwen had heard many times before now, almost everyone that she knew would always ask her this question. A question that she could never answer.

“I don’t know why, maybe I’m just a huge moron.” she stated in a sarcastic tone of voice that her friend had become used to by now.

“Yeah you’re a real fruit loop.” her slightly tired friend answer back in an equally sarcastic tone of voice. “So if you don’t mind me asking this, where are you now?” Lisa asked as she wanted to know just where her friend was located so she could pick her up.

Gwen was slightly taken aback by this as she almost completely forgotten just why she had called her friend in the first place. “Oh right, sorry I’m at some old gas station a few miles away from camp.” she quickly apologized to her friend as she began to explain her location. 

“It’s only a good few miles away from Sleepy Peek.” once Gwen had explained this to her roommate she quickly heard a loud frustrated sigh from over the phone.

“Fuck I hate driving through that town.” she loudly complained as Gwen quietly snickered to herself finding this whole situation to be a bit funny.

Gwen herself knew that Sleepy Peek was quite an awful place to live. It was completely isolated from the outside world, they barely have any technological improvements from the last thirty years, and people who honestly couldn’t care less about what goes on outside of the town itself. 

And even worse, they had to put up with all the bullshit that happens at Camp Campbell for a whole three months every single year since it opened. They have to put with all the fires, stolen vehicles, FBI investigations and everything else that Gwen wasn’t in the mood to recall. 

“It’s not that bad.” Gwen obviously lied in an attempt to cheer up her now annoyed friend. “Honestly it could be much worse.” she continued on. 

“Yeah, I could be working at that shithole of a camp.” she exclaimed in a dry tone. “Exactly,” Gwen quickly answered back in a fake excited tone. “So it isn’t that bad now is it?” she asked as she patiently waited for a response from her friend. 

“Is there anything distinctive about that place to make it easier to find?” Lisa asked her friend in the hopes that this information would make her job a little bit easier. 

“There’s a lot of trees.” Gwen stated in a sarcastic tone as she found that question to be ridiculous. “Oh yeah that’s very helpful you little smartass.” she responded in a tone that could only be described as a strange mix between anger and a small bit of sarcasm. But it was absolutely certain. “Seriously though could you at the very least look and see.” Gwen decided that she might as well make an attempt to help her out, so with a reluctant sigh the young woman began to look around the gas station.

The area where the building was located was a rather huge open space that was directly behind the large forest that surrounded both Camp Campbell and the small town of Sleepy Peek. 

The Gas Station itself wasn't in the best condition by any means, the paint was faded and chipped, the bright red neon sign was constantly flickering as it attempted to stay on and half of the letters were clearly broken.

“Um,” Gwen began to explain to her friend as she tried to think of just what she could say to her. “The place is pretty beaten up, there’s a big bright sign that’s broken. You can’t miss it.” 

“And there's also a really weird wooden statue of ... I think is a bear or something.” Gwen heard a poorly contained laugh as she described what she had seen. “Okay I’ll definitely keep a lookout for that.” Lisa claimed in a fit of laughter. 

“Well,” she finally began to speak as her laughter soon died down. “That’s better than nothing I guess, I’ll be over there in about an hour or so.” Lisa’s tone sounded really unsure by this fact and Gwen couldn’t tell if she was like this because it would take her much longer than an hour or if she wouldn’t be able to find the Gas Station. 

Gwen wasn't entirely sure if she should maybe check to see if Lisa needed anymore descriptions of where she should be looking, but her attempts were soon interrupted.

“Oh shit.” the connection had completely gone and ended the call.

She had tried several times to call her back again but not a single one of her attempts had worked in the slightest, the reception was now currently unusable to even send a text let alone make a phone call.

Gwen sighed as she just decided to walked back over to the car and wait for David to finish up with Max, hopefully Lisa would be able to find the place soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you guys like this chapter it was a real nightmare to write.


	6. Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically just David, Max and Gwen just hanging around the gas station while they wait for Gwen's friend to arrive.

“Thank you.” David stated as the uninterested cashier behind the front desk handed his change back.

Once this short exchange was over and done with the cashier’s attention soon when right back to his phone while David exited through the door as he shoved the remaining change into his pocket.

David quickly made his way over to the car, as he made his way over David could hear the loud audible sound of his hiking boots hitting against the hard stone ground and the sound of his recently purchased items moving side to side in the plastic bag that he held in his hand.

But as the man made his way towards the car he could visibly Gwen sitting in the front seat, her light brown skin appeared to be lit by the soft blue hue that most likely came from his phone. From what he could see it looked like she was maybe playing a game or she was just trying to send a text.

Either way David didn’t mind at all, the man just hoped that he didn’t keep Max and Gwen waiting for too long, as he knew that he had a bad habit of taking his time when doing simple tasks.

David walked over to the driver’s side door, and he then proceed to fully open the door and carefully climbed into the warm interior as he made sure not to damage any of the items that still remained in the thin plastic bag that he held.

“Sorry did I keep you waiting for long?” David asked Gwen as he closed the car door that created a small bang that echoed through the interior of the car.

Gwen looked over towards the man as she turned off the phone and places it down on her lap, while Max just sat there in the backseat without speaking a single word.

“No, you didn’t take that long, surprisingly enough.” the young woman answered with a rather smug expression plastered on her face as she leaned back in her seat and handed the man his phone back.

David’s face instantly turned a bright shade of red as he recalled the many times that Gwen had to wait for long stretches of time due to his actions. “I’m really sorry about that.” David awkwardly apologize as Gwen let out a small contained laugh that just made the man even more embarrassed.

“Aw come on, I’m just messing with you.” Gwen exclaimed as she gave David a friendly nudge to the arm. “Honestly, you weren’t gone for that long.” the female counselor tried to reason with the still clearly embarrassed man as he tried to focus on his phone, honestly he gets flustered way too easily Gwen thought as she looked over towards the plastic bag that was placed on the dashboard of the car.

“So what did you get anyway?” the woman asked as she tried to change the subject in an attempt to make her friend feel a little less awkward, David instantly took this opportunity to forget the past comment and instantly picked up the bag from the dashboard and handed it over to the curious woman.

“Just a few little things, water bottles and such.” David explained as he tried to calm himself down a little bit to no success but he still tried nonetheless.

“I got one for you as well.” he quickly added as Gwen reached for the bag giving the man a small smile for the kind gesture. “Thanks.” Gwen took the bag from David’s hands and silently searched through the inside of the plastic bag.

She retrieved one of the water bottles from the bag and opened it, she took a rather big drink as she hadn’t had a drink since she had left Camp. and quite honestly she would rather drink water from the ground then the rusty pipes from Camp Campbell. Gwen could feel the refreshing ice cold water run down her throat as she took a large drink from the bottle, she had managed to drink about half of the bottle by the time she was finished.

“Um, so what are you going to do now. Do you want me to give you a lift home?” David asked.

“No thanks it’s fine, I just called my friend a while ago and she picking me up.” the woman explained as she took another drink from her water bottle.

“Oh okay then,” David answered back with a smile. “But I think I’ll just stay here until your friend shows up, just to be safe.” he quickly stated to Gwen who honestly wouldn’t mind if David were too just leave.

She was at an open Gas station with someone still inside so she would be perfectly safe from any possible threat. “Are you sure, I’ll be fine on my own. I just have to wait a little bit.” Gwen stated in a calm tone as she found the idea of being left at the Station to be a rather okay one.

But David would have none of that. “Now Gwen I understand that, but I just can’t knowingly drive off and leave you here alone, and at night nonetheless.” Gwen visibly rolled her eyes at David’s statement, she clearly knew that at this point there was no reasoning with him.

So Gwen just decided that it would just be easier for her to just agree with the worried man, even though the young woman knew for a fact that she would be just fine waiting for her friend on her own.

“Okay if you insist, but I’m telling you there’s no need to worry.” David seemed relieved by this answer from his friend, the man clearly knew that he might be overreacting just a little bit about his worries. But it wouldn’t hurt if he’d just stayed there for a little bit longer. 

Max was extremely gratefully at this news that Gwen wouldn’t be with them for the rest of the ride over to Sleepy Peek, it was bad enough having one idiot camp counselor there let along fucking two of them.

And while Max would have much rather preferred both of them to just fuck off he was at least glad to hear that one of them would be gone soon.

As Max laid back in his seat he looked over to where David was seated, to his complete shock he saw that David was actually wearing something that was entirely different to his usual camp counselor attire that he had always seen him in.

It was strange seeing the man in a different pair of clothes, Max had honestly thought that David either couldn’t afford any real clothes or that he just straight up refused to wear anything else but that awful camp uniform.

From the little details that Max could see in the darkness it looked like David was wearing a light brown jacket with dark denim jeans that replaced his puke green shirt and dirt brown pants and vest.

And based on how the small rays of light reflected off the jacket Max could definitely tell that the coat was made with type of leather which was especially surprising to see David wearing.

But this was something that Max could definitely use against in the man in the future, which was always a good thing.

He could probably say something about how leather was murder or some random crab like that, hell Max was practically laughing to himself at that future conversation. 

But this slight amusement was soon replaced with the quick realization that this conversation would most likely never happen, David was just going to drop him off at the police station and leave. And there was a huge chance that he wouldn’t even be able to attend camp next year.

And if things did go exactly how Max had imagined then he would never see anyone at Camp Campbell ever again, he’d never see Nikki or Neil… he’d never see David again.

Oh god what the hell is wrong with him, why would he ever be remotely upset about never seeing David again. Max couldn’t stand the man, he was an irritating annoying idiot who had no clue how the real world worked at all.

Just being around him was insufferable, the child couldn’t bear hearing his stupid songs with his stupid little guitar. God it just drove Max crazy whenever he tried to be nice and supportive and all of that other shit.

It was obvious that it was all just an act that he was putting on to make himself feel better about his shitty life.

And no matter how hard Max tried he could never find a single piece of evidence to at least prove any of his thoughts or theories about the stupid male counselor, the boy didn’t know how he was able to keep up this act for so long the man was an idiot, he would have slipped up by now at least once.

But that slip up never happened which only pissed off Max even more and made his attempts to break the man more cruel and frequent.

Max couldn’t even remember why he had even started doing this in the first place, what would he even prove with this anyway? It’s not like Max didn’t already know that he couldn’t trust anyone, so why was he so worked up about David.

The confused boy thought about this for a rather long while as he tried to find an answer, and of course he couldn’t find it. Max quietly signed in frustration as he crossed his arms.

But then out of nowhere, he suddenly hears the sound of another car driving down the road and quickly pulling into the gas station followed by two bright lights from the vehicle's headlights.

Gwen instantly perked up from her previous slouch position in the seat to get a better look at the vehicle, her face gave a subtle smiled as she recognized that the car belonged to her friend.

To be honest Gwen definitely didn’t expect Lisa to be here by now, hell with the way she was complaining earlier Gwen would have expected her to take a few more hours to get there.

But nonetheless she was here.

“That’s my friend just there.” Gwen pointed out to David as she grabbed her backpack from under her seat and opened her side door.

“Huh, she’s a lot earlier than usual.” David stated as he opened his sides door.

“I know right, honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if she ran a few red lights to get here faster.” Gwen sarcastically remarked to the man as they both made their way over to the trunk of the vehicle so they could retrieve the rest of Gwen’s belongings.

All she had left were just two small suitcases so it wouldn’t take that much time to move them over to Lisa’s car.

David opened the trunk of the car and grabbed the two small suitcases, one being a black suitcase with multiple colorful stickers plastered all over it and the other one being a hot purple one was wheels.

“I can take these both.” David quickly stated as he pulled the two suitcases out of the boot before Gwen even had a chance to grab one.

But Gwen herself didn’t mind this one bit.

“Knock yourself out.” She answered back as Gwen didn’t mind David doing all the work, even if there wasn’t all that much to begin with.

The man smiled and began to make his way over towards Lisa’s car while Gwen stayed back a bit so she could lose the trunk and to lock the car so Max wouldn’t try anything while they were gone.

Once she press the button on the keys the car locked with an automatic click, and with that done and sorted Gwen then made her way over to the other car where both David and Lisa where waiting.  
_________________________

As the two adults were preoccupied with that Max carefully made his way up to the front of the car to get a better look at the person in the other car that was only parked a few feet away.

Max leaned up on the dashboard of the vehicle's interior as he couldn’t fully see out of the windshield if he just sat on the seat due to him not being tall enough to actually see anything of importance. 

The boy carefully looked through the clean glass windscreen moving away the few dangling ornaments that were hanged from the rear view mirror.

But once Max did this he was only able to see that the vehicle and it’s driver were annoyingly obscured by the bright light coming from the car’s headlights that were still left on.

“Turn off your fucking headlights.” Max grumble to himself in annoyance at the fact that the driver of the other vehicle was enough of a prick to still leave the headlights on like an idiot.

Now with this huge distraction the annoyed child was only able to point out that the color of the car was red and nothing else. Great just fucking great Max though as he fell back into the car’s seat, he had just decided to give up on his attempt to make out just what Gwen’s friend looked like, but based on the woman herself Max could at least make out a clear enough image in his head.

With this image Max could guess that Gwen’s friend was probably a massive loser who was stuck with a useless liberal arts degree, and was definitely into trashy reality TV shows.

Max was actually surprised to find out that Gwen even had another friend apart from David, and the woman never once mentioned anything about a friend or even a roommate during the past three years since he had been going to camp. 

Honestly with this Max was now just wondering what else he didn’t know about Gwen. And it didn’t even stop with her, Max had also began to think about David’s life outside of the camp.

He just tried to imagine what kind of job the man would have outside of the camp, honestly it was hard to imagine David working anywhere else, it was strange.

And the thoughts didn’t just stop with that Max also thought about the people That David would be around, would they all be just like him cheerful and excited about every little thing, or would they be complete assholes and pricks like Campbell.

The most realistic theory would be the second one, the world is just full of people like Campbell. And those kind of fuckers pry for people like David, people who are just too nice for their own good.

Max could imagine everyone constantly walking over David and treating him with little to no respect.

God just imagining some random asshole treating David like complete shit and him just taking it made Max overwhelmed with rage at the thought, he couldn’t stand the fact that the man was so easy to manipulate and use.

He didn’t even know why he was so angry with this to begin with, hell he would constantly make the counselor’s life a living hell for the past three months almost every year that he had attended camp, so what made the child suddenly care about David now? But then it came to him, he remembered how David had went against Campbell’s word and took him for some pizza. The boy still couldn’t believe that David actually chose him over Campbell his idol. Hell if that prick wasn’t thrown in jail then he would have definitely fired David for going against his orders.

The bastard Campbell, Max couldn’t stand how David would still constantly praise that fucking fraud even after everything that he had seen so far, even after he was thrown in jail where be belongs.

Jesus Christ why couldn’t the man just see that Campbell was using him, why couldn’t he just admit that the man was a greedy asshole who didn’t care about anyone other than himself.

Hell if David couldn’t see that, then how could Max ever trust that he himself was even remotely close to anything that the man had suggested over the past three years.

How could he really believe David when he said that he was ‘A good kid’ or that he was ‘quite mature for his age’ he couldn’t believe a single word, the man just had a real shit judge of character.

In all honesty Max was no different from Campbell, and that was what made him snap inside.

Why the hell was he even thinking about this in the first place, he would never think about this kind of stuff before. 

Max was just frustrated with everything that was happening to him. He just wanted to stop thinking about what was going to happen after this night, he wanted to stop thinking about fucking David of all people.

Hell the only reason why he was even in this situation in the first place was because of David.

“Fucking hell.” The young boy suddenly blurred out as his foot violently bashed into the dashboard with a loud thud, but this wasn’t loud enough for the group of adults to notice.

Why the fuck did David even bother to drive him there in the first place? He could have just called the police and had them take him away but no, David couldn’t do that he just had to drive him all the way over there and waste his time and gas over nothing. But then Max finally understood exactly why the man did this, and this realization just made Max’s blood boil.

‘That sneaky little prick was doing all of this on purpose’ Max thought to himself, the only reason why David was even doing this was so he could try to make him feel guilty.

This was his whole plan from the very beginning, to get back at the boy for everything he had done to him over the summer.

“That fucking bastard!” Max loudly yelled out in anger as he kicked the dashboard again but this time it was much harder.

“Fucking bastard, that fucking… fuck!” The boy slammed his hands down on the seat as he was just at a loss of words at this point, he was practically turning red with pure rage as he imagined just how much David was enjoying this.

Max just wanted to storm out of the car and slap that smug prick right in his fucking face, and for a split second the enraged boy was almost going to do this very thing.

His hand was just above the car doors handle he was only seconds away from making this vision in his mind into a reality, but as Max got a grip on the cold metal handle and heard the faint click of the door opening.

Something in the boys mind just told him that this action of revenge wasn’t worth it, no that wasn’t entirely true.

Even despite the boys rage towards the man, he knew that David didn’t really do anything wrong. Everything that he was doing up until this point was nothing but kind and caring for the boy.

God what was wrong with him, why did he always have to be a bastard to the people who tried to help him.

David didn’t deserve any of this, he didn’t deserve to be treated like complete shit and he definitely didn’t deserve to be stuck with him for this long amount of time.

Once Max’s temper had gone down a significant bit to where he had previously been a few moments ago he quietly closed the car door and sat there patiently as he waited for David to return to the car.


End file.
